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Strangeness on the High Seas (Mr. M & Finnaholic)

M

Mr Master

Pulsar
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Location
Right behind you... you smell nice, by the way...
St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, was a peaceful little island settlement. Protected by the Danish Navy, it was open to free colonization, so Jews, Huguenots, and English all came to stay and grow sugar cane for export. The main town was sleepy, not entirely rich but not destitute, and not worth the effort to sack, as pirates had been known to do in other areas of the Caribbean, and not interesting enough to draw an unsavory crowd as tourists.

That did not mean that pirates didn’t come visit, they just didn’t do so as pirates.

Two, in fact, were loitering in the marketplace one hot afternoon, keeping to the shade of the fishmonger stall’s palm-frond roof. “We’ve got to be close,” the taller one hissed to the shorter one. “It’s been moving around too much.”

“Aye,” said the shorter one, “let me just get a good look.”

He half-retreated behind the taller pirate, and brought out a handful of thick cloth from his shoulder satchel. Lifting the cloth away from what was hidden within, he gazed at it, a strange bluish glow reflecting up at his whiskers and sweaty face.

“It’s moving still,” the shorter one whispered, turning back and forth slightly, as if centering in on something, but continuing to rotate that center, pivoting on his heel. “It stopped. Moving again. Do you see anything?”

“There’s a girl.”

“Where? Don’t point, describe her.”

The taller pirate did, and both of them stared at the girl, the pretty young girl out shopping for her household’s supplies, the girl with the antique locket. In the bright sun, no one could have noticed if the edges of the closed locket might have glowed a tiny blue, echoing whatever it was in the pirates’ possession.
 
Christina lived with her family on a sugar cane farm outside the main town. Her family had lived on the small island for several generations now.

One day, a few months ago, she'd decided to see what was in the boxes her father kept stashed in the attic of the house. After going through a couple boxes, she came across an old locket. Thinking it might have belonged to her great-grandmother, she'd put it on, then put everything else back where it belonged. She'd worn the locket almost every day since then.

She stopped at a vegetable stand, getting the last few things she needed for her family's dinner that night. After paying the vendor, she turned to leave the marketplace, heading in the opposite direction of the two pirates standing in front of the fishmongers. She'd been too busy shopping to notice that the edges of her locket had started glowing faintly.
 
The short pirate moved through the light crowd, pretending to shop while keeping the girl in sight. The taller pirate went back down to the wharf, where he unlashed a dinghy and began to row out to an anchored ship.

As night lazily stole across the island, the sea breezes gently tossed the palm trees and made the tops of the sugar canes rustle all around the plantation's main house. Christina's family had their dinner, read in the drawing room, and then turned in. The tall, arched windows of the bedrooms were opened to the warm night, letting in the breeze to offer some relief.

It was well past midnight, the moon just setting over the horizon, when there was a rustling below Christina's window. One by one, shadowy figures climbed the trellis on the side of the house, silently crushing the decorative flowering vines as they climbed. Seven stealthy pirates clambered over Christina's windowsill. They moved within the room, casting about, searching quietly over all her possessions. Two of them moved to the sides of the bed, while the shorter pirate from the afternoon moved near her sleeping face, watching carefully for signs of wakefulness. It was only a matter of time, with the other four pirates searching, before something disturbed her rest.

As soon as she stirred, the short pirate clapped his hand over her mouth, and the two pirates flung her sheet over her body and pulled, pinning her to the mattress completely, keeping her from all but the most basic struggling. "If ye don't settle down and tell us what we want to know," he hissed into her ear, "It'll be the death of ye. Do ye understand what I'm saying, missy?"
 
Christina had been the first to turn in for the night, removing the locket from around her neck and placing it beneath her mattress, toward the middle of the bed. She would have placed it in her jewelry box, but she didn't want anyone to know she'd taken it from the boxes in the attic.

Unaware that she was about to have several unexpected guests enter her bedroom, she slept on while four of the pirates searched her room for the locket. Eventually, she is awakened by the sounds from the pirates searching her room. Just as she realized that she wasn't alone in her room, she opened her mouth to scream, only to have a hand put over her mouth. She tried to sit up, but with two pirates holding her sheet tight across the bed, her movement was vastly limited.

Nodding her head, she kept her eyes on the pirate that was speaking to her, wondering what he was after, but with the hand covering her mouth, she couldn't say anything.
 
One of the other pirates tapped the shorter man on the shoulder, and shook his head. The shorter man sighed and looked Christina in the eye. "I don't suppose you'd just tell us where it is? Never mind."

He handed his shoulder bag to a pirate with spectacles. The other pirate man took out a cloth bundle and pulled it open. Something inside cast a blue light on his face, a blue light that got brighter as he swung the bundle around. He walked around the room a bit, and finally gestured to Christina. "It's on her."

"Right, bundle her up," said the shorter man briskly. In a flurry of movement, the men wrapped Christina up in her sheet tighter than a mummy, as if they'd done this sort of thing before. Someone managed to gag her before they wrapped her head in the sheet.

The pirates were already smuggling her struggling form down the trellis by the time the spectacled pirate noticed the truth of the matter. One flipped mattress later, and the remaining pirates crawled down the side of the house, locket safely stashed. On the ground, the spectacled man glanced at the retreating forms carrying the bundled, struggling girl. "Should we call them back to let her go?"

"Nay, we need her still," the short pirate growled. "It's her locket, she probably knows the secrets. Besides, the cap'n will want to talk to her. And... I'm hoping we get some liberty time with her!" He leered at his partner, and then hustled after the others.

The journey was difficult for Christina. Carried at a run, then slung over the back of a horse, then in a small boat, and then finally hoisted up to a larger craft, where she finally felt her bonds being loosened, and found herself in her nightclothes in the middle of the deck, ringed by scruffy, sweaty men, with a handsome man standing within the ring, looking at her. "Welcome aboard, my dear," he intoned in a melodious deep voice. "I wonder, what can you tell me about this?" And he let the locket dangle from his fingers.
 
To say she was upset by the time she'd finally been released from the sheet binding her would be a huge understatement. Glaring at the men surrounding her on the deck of the ship, she crossed her arms over her chest. She was about to demand to be taken back to the island, but stopped when her locket was dangled in front of her face.

Reaching out, she tried grabbing it, her eyes narrowed at the man holding it. "Give that back to me. It does not belong to you!" It didn't really belong to her either, if not for the fact that she'd found it among her family's belongings.

Looking around, she saw the men who she'd seen in her bedroom just a few moments before. "You!! I demand that you take me back to my home immediately! Once I get off this ship, I'm going to see the lot of you hanged for kidnapping!"
 
The men gawked at her outburst, and then the captain chuckled. Soon, all the other pirates were laughing, a low and nasty sound. “Oh, yes,” the captain said, “I’m sure we will be. If they don’t charge us with piracy, or looting, or murder, or any of the other things we’re all guilty of.”

He gestured, and two burly pirates stepped close and seized her arms, holding her standing in front of the captain. He brandished the locket once again. “I shall ask you again. What can you tell me about this locket? Have you ever opened it? Do you know where it came from?”

He fixed his gaze on hers, and indeed, his face was baleful. “I assure you, if you make me ask again, you will not enjoy the manner in which I present the question, little girl.”
 
Christina cringed when the men around her all started laughing. Glancing around again, she tried finding the easiest path off the ship. The pirates were all too close together for her to find a clear route to safety. Turning back to face the captain, she once again reached for the locket he was holding out in front of her.

She narrowed her eyes when the two pirates grabbed her arms. She would have struggled, but on a ship full of men and her in just a nightgown, it was probably best that she cooperate. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the captain again. Once she got the locket back, and herself back on the island, she would see them all arrested for the various crimes they were guilty of, as well as kidnapping her. "I don't know anything about the locket, except that it was among my family's belongings. Now that I have answered your questions, can I please have it back?"
 
The captain stared at her, and tapped a finger against his lips. A tall, muscular Moor stepped up next to him, and leaned over to speak quietly to him. Christina was close enough to overhear.

"There could be a blood relation, cap'n," said the Moor in a lilting African accent.

"Aye," mused the captain. "Either with the fragment or the locket itself. She could be useful."

"She'll be more... cooperative if you tell her what's going on."

"You think so, do ye?" The captain seemed almost amused by the thought, but he nodded. "You have a point. Put her in the aft cabin, I'll have a talk with her when we're underway." He straightened and raised his voice to address the crew. "Haul the sail and set course for Havana. We'll figure out where next along the way."

The men at her arms abruptly lifted her up and carried her to the back of the ship, while the other pirates all scattered and bustled, hauling on lines and pushing on beams and cranking a great wheel to lift the anchor up from the sea floor. Her two captors carried her to the small cabin at the back of the ship, were they shoved her through a small door and locked it behind her.

It was a low-ceilinged, trim and neat little space, with a broad dining table and several chests and map cases. She'd been on enough ships to know this was the closest thing to a private chamber that sailing life usually allowed for, but it was as good as a prison cell to her.
 
Even though she could hear what they were saying, she was clueless what they were taking about. She was about to ask for clarification, when she was lifted and carried into the cabin at the back of the ship, struggling the entire way. "Give me back my locket and let me off this ship!"

After being pushed into the aft cabin, she tried to leave, only to have the door shut in her face then locked. Feeling the ship start to move, she sits down at the table. She couldn't understand what they wanted her for, but knew it would probably be a long time before she was able to see her family again.

She'd heard the captain order the crew to set a course for Havana, so maybe there she would be able to get her locket back and escape the group of pirates.
 
It seemed like a long time before the captain came into the cabin, his arrival heralded by the opening of the lock. He came in, and… well, he didn’t stand straight, as the ceiling was too low for that. But he straightened his back and curved his shoulders forward and smoothed down his brocaded coat. He wasn’t a bad-looking man; dark-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, a kind of rakish sense of style, and pleasant features that currently wore a cast of suspicion and the hardness of determination.

He pulled out one of the chairs from the large dining table, moving easily and surely despite the pitching of the deck as the ship moved into open seas. Sitting, he regarded Christina with eyes that glinted in the meager lamplight. The sky was black as pitch outside, it being in the wee hours of the morning, and yet a distance until dawn.

“My name,” he said slowly, “is MacReedy. Thomas MacReedy. I’m the duly elected captain of this pirate band, and you are currently sailing on the Fell Fortune, as darkly named a ship as I’ve ever had the misfortune to sail upon, but one entirely fitting, at the moment. We, the crew, are trying to change that.”

“To understand what interest we have in your locket, I need to get your opinion on… this.” From his pocket, Captain MacReedy pulled out what seemed to be a cylinder, about eight inches long and about two inches in diameter. It was capped at each end by a rounded knot of what seemed like very shiny brass, which looked almost exactly like the metal the locket was made out of, but the bulk of the cylinder seemed to be translucent glass – though it felt more like horn, if she were to touch it – that appeared to glow with an inner light, shedding bright blue illumination from a source she could not determine. He handed it to her for her inspection.
 
Having dozed off due to the rocking of the ship as it left port, Christina was awakened by the sound of the door opening. Sitting up, she watched the pirate captain enter the room. Had they met under different circumstances, she might have found him somewhat attractive. But since she had been brought aboard the ship against her will, she felt nothing but loathing for him and his crew.

Eyes narrowed, she watched him as he pulled out a chair and sat down. She wasn't all that interested in his name, or the name of his ship. She just wanted to get her locket back from him and return to her family's plantation. "I don't care who you are, or whatever misfortune has befallen you and your crew."

She had been about to demand that he return her locket, but then he took what looked to her like a cylinder with brass at each end. As she reached out to take it from him, she noticed that it was glowing. She studied it for a moment before looking back up at Thomas. She shook her head, handing it back to him. "I don't know what that is, or what exactly it has to do with me, and my locket."
 
Wordlessly, he rose and crossed to the lamp. He turned it down low, making it very dim in the room. Then he came slowly back to her, fishing the locket out of his pocket. As he approached, the cylinder in her hand brightened, and the seams of the locket began to glow, as well, shedding light as if something quite bright was sealed within.

“As you can see, your locket and our rod are linked. We don’t know how, we don’t know why. But none of us can open this locket; we can’t even open it with tools. And you wouldn’t know that we tried; nothing we have can even scratch the material. We simply cannot open it.”

He regarded her a moment, then handed the locket back. “Can you?”
 
Christina kept watching him as he got up to lower the flame on the lamp. Glancing down at the object in her hand, she could definitely see that it was glowing. As Thomas returned, she noticed that her locket had started glowing as well. Having not noticed that the day before, it certainly got her attention now.

She listened, getting upset as he started to explain that neither he, nor any of his crew members had been able to get it open. She grabbed the locket from his hand when he held it out to her. Even in the dim light of the lamp, she could tell that there wasn't a single scratch on the locket. She looked up at him as she slid the necklace over her head so it rested around her neck. "I'm tired now, since I had been rudely awakened by several of your men. If you let me go to sleep now, I assure you that once I wake, I will try to open my locket."
 
He regarded her coolly. "All right. It's a couple days sail to Havana, anyway. You can stay here: it's private, and it's the most comfortable lockable room on the ship. We haven't used it as a cabin since we turned pirate, but I'll string a hammock for you."

He took the cylinder back, slipped it in his pocket, then moved to one of the trunks, taking out some canvas and rope and cloth: a sturdy hammock. Not as soft as a bed, but reasonably proof against the rocking of the ship, and more comfortable than the chair she had been dozing in.

He strung it between two utility hooks on the walls, and gave her several thin blankets, one folded into a small bundle to be used as a pillow. "I'll bring you some breakfast in the morning, and we can get started trying to figure out how your locket factors into the entire equation, yes? Nothing like a mystery to solve." He smiled, and for a change there wasn't a hint of nastiness in it. "Sleep well."

Of course, when he left, he still double-locked the door.
 
Christina nodded, watching him set up a hammock for her to sleep in. It probably wouldn't be as comfortable as her bed back home, but it was very unlikely that she would be going back there any time soon. It was better than sleeping in the same space as the crew aboard the ship though, and for that she was a little grateful.

She thanked him when she was given the blankets, setting the folded one at one end of the hammock. The other blankets were draped over the hammock, one corner folded back so she could get under them once she was in it. It took her a couple tries to get in the thing, but once she was, she pulled the covers over her, making sure her locket was tucked inside her nightgown. It didn't take her long to fall asleep, and she didn't hear him double-locking the door as he left the cabin.
 
The morning was bright and clear when she was awoken by the sound of the door being unlocked. Captain MacReedy entered with a covered plate and a flagon of water. “You’re lucky we laid in fresh provisions. This breakfast certainly beats hardtack and jerky.” He set the plate on the table, and let Christina eat. He’d already eaten, so he just poured himself a mug of water and drank it while she fed herself.

“I spoke with the crew,” he said after a bit. “They’ve agreed that you can have a share in the treasure if you can help us find it. Just your share could set your entire family up for years. You could retire, even at your young age, to a life of leisure.” He grinned. “Assuming we find it first, and manage to figure out how to maximize it.”

After she had finished her meal, he asked “Are you willing to open the locket for us, yet?”
 
Christina woke up when the door opened, sitting up to rub the sleep from her eyes. Swinging her legs over the side of the hammock, she stood up, only to stumble as she felt the gentle rocking of the ship when she set her feet on the floor.

Nodding to him, she moved to sit at the table once she'd gotten used to the steady movement of the ship as it moved through the waves. Lifting the cover off the plate he'd brought her, she started eating. Glancing up at him, she got a confused look on her face when he mentioned a treasure. Reaching into her nightgown, she pulled the locket out, looking at it again. "Is that why you kidnapped me? Because of a treasure?"

She finished eating her breakfast, leaning back in her seat. "I can try to open it, but I won't make any promises." She took the necklace from around her neck and tried to open it, but with no success.
 
“We kidnapped you as a means to an end. Whatever this rod ends up leading to, that’s the end. If that’s treasure, that’s all the better.” He grinned. “We’re pirates; what do you expect of us?”

He watched her try, and fail, to open the locket. “Hmm,” The captain frowned. “Well, the locket is clearly involved, but if you can’t open it, you’re as useless as the rest of us.” He straightened. “If you wish, you can get off at Havana. If there’s no blood link from your family to the secret, then there’s no reason to keep you. Of course, we’ll need the locket.”

He paused a moment. “Hmm,” he said quietly. “I wonder.” Abruptly, his hand darted out, fast as a striking snake, and gripped the hand that held the locket. His other hand came up, brandishing a glittering dagger…
 
"The locket stays with me, Captain MacReedy. I am the one who found it, and I'm not letting you take it away from me."

Christina had been about to put the necklace back around her neck, but was stopped when he suddenly grabbed her hand. Blinking as he lifted a dagger, she closed her hand tightly around her locket. "Release my hand now, Thomas. I don't know what you think you are doing, but I'm not letting you anywhere near me with that dagger!"
 
"I would be intrigued to know how you intend to stop me," the captain said absently, focusing on her hand. He was completely aware of what she was doing, of course, through his peripheral vision, but he wanted to work delicately. "Now, loosen up a little. I had an idea that perhaps the blood link was exactly that: a link of blood."

He wrestled with her hand a moment more, then the dagger flicked in and punched a tiny hole in her finger. It was only as bad as a pinprick, really, and she'd given herself worse doing the mending around the house, but part of it was the indignity and the surprise of it. He held her hand tighter still, though, and squeezed a drop of blood out of the tiny wound, which fell on the locket and... she could feel it give, a little, just a tiny bit.
 
Christina did her best to keep her hand closed around the locket, but he was stronger than her. She couldn't stop him as he poked her finger with the tip of the dagger, watching a tiny drop of blood appear where he'd pricked her finger. As she watched the drop of blood fall onto the locket, she felt it open a tiny bit.

Taking the locket into her other hand, she opened it completely, wondering just what was inside it. "Okay. It's open, so now what do you plan on doing with it?"
 
“That depends on what’s in… ah!” He tipped the open locket forward a bit, so it sat flat open, and something happened. Something that neither Christina nor Thomas had ever seen before.

Tiny ghostly images, lines and figures in some strange, almost Chinese-looking script, appeared in midair over the locket. Inside the brass-like locket, the spaces where tiny pictures would have gone was somewhat awkwardly filled with a milky substance that looked like putty, except it was hard, permanently fixed in place, and glowing blue, like the cylinder.

Thomas MacReedy lowered his face to gaze at the figures, fascinated. His eyes sparkled, his face relaxed, and for a moment, he seemed less like a pirate and more like a child with a new toy. It was a momentary glance over at the cylinder that distracted him: the cylinder also had script glowing within it. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured. He glanced up into Christina’s face. “And what do you think of that? Is it worth investigating?”
 
Christina watched in amazement as some strange script appeared above her locket. She didn't know what any of it meant, but she was definitely intrigued now. Glancing up at Thomas when he spoke, she gave a light nod. "I think it is definitely worth searching for."

Closing the locket, she put it back around her neck, looking again at Thomas. "The locket stays with me, though. It apparently belonged to someone in my family."
 
“If it stays entirely with you,” he said evenly, “you’re going to be really bored with all the research. We have to make notes, see if it’s a compass or a message in a bottle, or a book of some sort.” He gestured to the door. “You’re free to move about the ship, if you want, get some sun on your skin, and I promise you, you will retain ownership of the locket, but you don’t have to maintain constant possession.” He chuckled. “I’ll give it back.”
 
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